Hauntings
by L.M.Lewis
Summary: It's that time of year--pumpkins, costumes, ghosts, and film noir.


Disclaimer: These are not my characters and I make no profit from them.

**Author's Note:** We got our marching orders from Lynn—a pumpkin and a costume.

The setting: October 31st, 1985, just a day or so after the guys returned from Canary Creek, where the judge had a near fatal encounter with Sheriff Cutler and his precociously evil, sixteen-year-old daughter, Tina. There are also references to "Angie's Choice", "Never My Love", and "Too Rich and Too Thin".

**Hauntings**

by L. M. Lewis

"It'll be fun," Hardcastle wheedled. "You had a good time last year, didn'tcha?"

Mark, draped over one of the chairs, looked unmoved—except for one eyebrow that rose questioningly at the judge's idea of a good time.

"Well," the older man conceded, "maybe not the part where they tried to shove you in the crematorium, but after that—"

"You mean the part where Cyndi dumped me a _second_ time for Clayton Pasternack? That's the part you're talking about?"

The judge frowned, then conceded again. "Okay. But this year'll be different, you'll see. Heck, the party's at Mattie's place. You like those little hot dog things she serves."

"Not enough to spend the night with a bunch of judges in goofy costumes," Mark shook his head decisively then cocked it, eyeing Hardcastle, who looked no goofier than usual in a Yankee's cap and sweats. "You going as the girls' field hockey referee again this year?"

"Nah," the judge waved that off, "got something special. Coulda picked you up one, too—something nice in the black and white horizontal stripes department, maybe."

Mark barely acknowledged that with a grunt. He knew a baiting when he saw one. "Anyway," he finally sighed, "I'm gonna stay right here, put my feet up, and catch the late show. S'posed to be 'The Maltese Falcon'. A double-dealing, two-timing woman gets a man killed. _That_ sounds like fun."

The judge shook his head slowly. "I dunno, kiddo, I think a year's long enough to get over whatshername."

"Cyndi," Mark interjected, "and I _am_ over her. Really. It's just that I don't feel much like going out tonight: Halloween's always been your holiday, Hardcase," he glanced down at the watch on his wrist, "and you better go get your costume on if you don't want to miss out on all of Mattie's halloweenies."

Hardcastle shrugged and departed. Mark heard him thumping up the stairs at the pace of a man who knows he's wasted too much time on a lost argument and doesn't want to be late for a shindig. As for himself, he turned forward in his chair, cradling the remote in his hand, still down in his lap. He hadn't gone looking for Bogie yet; he was still mulling over what Hardcastle had said. He didn't _think_ this was a late case of Cyndi regret, more like a slightly delayed reaction to the events of the past forty-eight hours.

He frowned. All those people at the party would have heard about it. It was a top news story: the so-called rape, the jail breakout, their cross-country escapade, the whole nine yards. There'd be bound to be a bunch of stupid questions. Let Hardcastle handle 'em; he was the man of the hour, anyway. Mark nodded to himself. He'd spend the evening with Sam Spade, looking sideways at Brigid O'Shaughnessy and trying to duck the cops. In the end the falcon would turn out to be lead and Brigid a murderess, but Spade was never disappointed—he expected nothing more.

More thumps on the staircase, this time a little louder, and Mark leaned around the wing of the chair. It was a casual glance that turned into a stare. He finally found his voice.

"The boots are wrong—those are your motorcycle cop boots, aren't they?"

"Better then the ones that came with it." Hardcastle shrugged and settled the gun belt a little more to the right. "They would've chewed my feet up and spit 'em out." He cast a surveying glance down at the slate blue shirt and nearly matching pants, then tilted the white cowboy hat back on his forehead. "And it's the overall effect that's important. Nobody's gonna look at the boots." He rested his palm on the handle of the very realistic white-handled six-shooter resting in the holster and struck a pose. "Besides, if I'd known you were gonna be a critic, I woulda snuck outta here in my civvies and changed over at Mattie's place."

"And miss your big entrance?" Mark shook his head. "That'd be a shame. But where's the mask?"

"In my pocket. Thought it might not be a good idea to drive with it on." The judge gave him one more critical look. "Last offer. Mattie won't even care if you come as you are. Or we can throw a sheet over you and say you're a ghost of a chance."

"Is that like a long shot that missed?" Mark's brief grin lapsed back into a weary expression as he waved the other man off. "Nah, you run along and have a good time. Don't let Silver drink out of the punch bowl and tell 'em Tonto had a hot date."

"With Sam Spade?" Hardcastle said, as Mark turned away and hit the power button on the remote. The opening credits were just ending and Spade was ensconced at his office desk, rolling a cigarette.

"More trustworthy than a dame," Mark muttered, in his best Bogie imitation. There was another vague shooing motion visible over the top of the chair and then Hardcastle shrugged one last time and departed.

Mark slouched down, extending one leg and dragging an ottoman in, then slouched even further. He briefly considered popcorn but then decided even that was too much effort. Brigid O'Shaughnessy was pleading her case. Spade wouldn't fall for it but Archer would, the sap. The firm of Spade and Archer would be out one operative before the first commercial break. He nodded; his eyes closed for a moment.

He was brought to full alertness by a sudden and unexpected ringing on the doorbell. It felt as though no time at all had passed, but there was Spade giving a hard time to the little gunsel, Wilmer. The bell rang again. Mark sighed. It was too late for trick-or-treaters and the estate was an unproductive distance from the highway, but they did get the occasional chauffeur-driven little Dracula or Cinderella.

His suspicions were confirmed by the shortness of the distorted outline visible through the diamond-paned door glass. Mark rooted around in the bowl by the door. There wasn't much of the decent stuff left—just some packets of malted milk balls and candy corn, but that'd teach the little darlings not to keep late hours. He grabbed a fistful and unlocked the door.

He stared, momentarily speechless. The figure on the other side of the door was leaning slightly, with one hand braced on the door frame and the other stuffed in his leather jacket pocket. Mark felt a shudder of near recognition, immediately confirmed as the boy took off the utterly unnecessary pair of sunglasses and folded them into his pocket in a practiced maneuver.

"_Nicky_?" It had come out as a near-yelp and Mark cast a quick look out into the yard—no Lindsey, no car or taxi, either. Then his gaze was riveted back onto the boy. "What the hell are you doing here? Aren't you supposed to be up in Tacoma or something? Don't tell me your mom's in trouble again."

"Who the hell's Nicky?" the small and surly doppelganger asked with a sneer worthy of the child in question. "You gonna make me stand out here on the steps all night or are we going to get on with this?"

Mark looked down at the booty in his hand. The kid had no plastic pumpkin, not even a brown paper shopping bag. His costume, if that's what it was, was just leather jacket, sunglasses, and attitude.

"Okay," he said patiently, "if you're aren't Nicky tonight, then who the hell are you?" He turned and dropped the stash back into the bowl.

"I'm a spirit."

Mark jerked. "You mean," he felt himself suddenly pale, "Nicky's _dead_?" Despite a distinct distaste for ghostly apparitions, he absently noticed his lack of grief over the news.

"Sheesh." The self-pronounced phantasm crossed his arms and assumed an impatient look. He did everything but tap his foot. "Not _that_ kind of spirit. Didn't you ever read Dickens?"

That settled it for Mark. The thing on the front porch was not any possible incarnation of Nicky Bloom.

"I'm the Spirit of Halloween Past," the kid said sharply. "We've gotta hustle. I'm supposed to show you things."

Mark half turned again, pointing in toward the glow from the den. "I'm not missing Sidney Greenstreet. It's the best part." But the spirit has already reached out toward him. He felt a chill hand on his arm and the hallway faded into vaporous gray.

There was a feeling of displacement—in time or space or both—without any sense of motion. However it was done, he landed on his feet, though there was no actual sense of solid ground beneath him.

The room was familiar, though distinctly smaller than he remembered it, as it was for all things left behind in childhood. It was a shabby place, in retrospect, but some of its shabbiness was swathed in shadows, and the small remainder was bathed in the golden glow of an incandescent bulb, under a brown-stained parchment shade in the corner. Beneath that sat a child of seven or so, cross-legged in a chair whose upholstery had been first applied sometime before the Second World War. The boy was intent on something—reading. Mark hesitated.

"He can't see ya or nothing," the spirit beside him huffed. "I mean, if he could, that would really mess things up, ya know."

"It's _me_," Mark smiled in astonishment. "This is where I lived." He looked around and then frowned sharply. "What a dump."

"Yeah," the spirit agreed.

"So, is this, like, Halloween when I was a kid?"

"You don't remember it?"

Mark shook his head. "No, I mean, not much. It was just another day. My mom worked and she said I couldn't go out. It was dangerous." He moved in closer and saw what his younger self was so intent on—a tattered comic book. "Batman," he said with a bemused shake of his head. "I'd forgotten about those."

The spirit shrugged. "Makes sense, I guess. The back story and all."

Mark ducked his chin and looked sideward, questioningly.

"Batman's folks were killed—he was an orphan—"

"He was a _rich_ orphan," Mark interjected. He looked around at the cramped and dismal surrounding. "Nah," he finally added, "no big mystery about the comic book heroes. I think I wanted to be anywhere but here. It wasn't till it was gone that I found out there were worse places." He shook his head again. "Listen, I already lived through this once. Is there any reason I should have to put up with it a second time?"

"Those who don't learn from the past are doomed to repeat it," the spirit said solemnly.

"You are definitely not Nicky," Mark said, and stood quietly when the cold hand touched him again.

"Where—?" but he didn't even need to finish the question. He recognized the municipal cemetery with an immediate rush of nostalgic familiarity. There was an autumn crisp to the air and leaves scurrying in the stiff breeze. The street lights barely penetrated the perimeter of the grounds but overhead was a harvest moon.

Two figures sat huddled together in the shadow of a large stone.

"Wait a sec." Mark put an arm out to bar the spirit's progress toward them. "This might not be a good time."

"They still can't see us."

"Yeah, but you can see _them_. I mean, how old are you, nine?"

The spirit laughed in a way that suggested the unit of measure might be eons. There was _depth_ to the laugh that Mark didn't really want to look down into. But the couple was already in a liplock. It looked like it would be a short ways from there to second base and, though the faces weren't visible, the guy had tousled hair and a disturbingly familiar pair of chinos.

"Uh-uh," Mark said firmly. "We are not watching me make out on a grave in Hoboken. There is no _way_ this can be educational."

"It's supposed to remind you that Halloween used to be a fun holiday and you weren't always such a total loser with chicks," the spirit said petulantly.

"Okay, point taken," Mark said grimly. "Now can we get back to Sidney Greenstreet?"

"I was supposed to show you one more scene."

"Lemme guess, Cyndi and Clayton's honeymoon cottage."

"Kinda. They got a time-share up at Big Bear."

"I don't think you're helping me all that much."

"Come on, do you really think you'd be happy in a resort timeshare?" The spirit reached out to pat him consolingly on the arm.

00000

He awoke with a start. The D.A. was quizzing Spade, who was not cooperating. Mark frowned and looked down at his watch. Less than an hour had passed since Hardcastle's departure. Mark rubbed his face with his hands and tried to dispel the remnants of the weird dream. He lumbered to his feet and was already up the steps, heading for the kitchen and some popcorn, when he heard the doorbell chime.

He turned sharply. The poorly defined shape on the porch was relievedly taller than the last one, which Mark sternly reminded himself had been a figment of his imagination. This one, on the other hand, could be some sort of trouble. On the _other_ other hand, it might be one of Hardcastle's judicial confreres, mistaken about the location of the party. He headed wearily for the door, opening it slowly.

"Can I help you?" He frowned in puzzlement at a man who was a few inches taller than himself, with a face that was familiar, though out of context.

"Burt," he said, in sudden recognition. "Burt, ah, _Schneider_." It came back to him in a flash of memory—the jovial PI they'd met up at Watersong, working on the murder of one of Hardcastle's old law buddies.

The figure on the steps was jovial enough. But the rumbling chuckle he let out that didn't quite track with Mark's recollection of Schneider.

"I'm glad you're ready to roll," the figure said. "We've got places to go and people to see."

"No," Mark said, warding his approach off with one hand. "Nope. I've got a movie to watch. Humphrey Bogart, Mary Astor. The Maltese _Falcon_, dammit. No more grim looks at my misspent youth."

"'Course not," the figure said, in a chummy way that was cheerful but not reassuring. "The Past ain't my territory, Bud. I am the Spirit of Halloween _Present_. Let's hit the road."

Mark looked at him in resigned disbelief. "You mean I don't have any say in this at all?"

"Nah, it's a done deal." The spirit reached out and touched him on the sleeve. Their surroundings evaporated in a scintillation of light and were instantly replaced with the bright, noisy environs of a party. They were off a bit, to the side, in a hallway that Mark recognized as the one that led back to Mattie's kitchen.

The spirit gestured back, away from the costumed party-goers visible through the archway. Mark was temporarily relieved, until he recognized the quieter voices engaged in more intimate conversation coming from the back room.

"I . . . _can't_," Mark stalled and tried to do an about-face. "I told him I wasn't coming."

"Nah, nothin' to worry about. We're on a whole different spatial plane here. Those guys can't hear or see us."

"I dunno," Mark said doubtfully, still trying to dig in his heels, "it kinda seems like spying."

"You gotta; it's important."

"Why?" Mark had dropped his voice to a near-whisper, despite the spirit's assurances. He couldn't help noticing they were close enough now to make out individual voices and Hardcastle's was the most obvious.

They had arrived in the doorway of the kitchen—Mattie's pride and joy with its homey array of copper cookware hanging from cast iron hooks on the wall above the stove, and a collection of herb pots in the greenhouse window over by the sink. It had the look of Provence and she always joked that having it had finally forced her to learn to cook, out of the sheer embarrassment of feeling like a fraud.

There were three people sitting there. Frank, in a Babe Ruth uniform, and Mattie, wearing her traditional fortuneteller's get-up, were leaning in a little over the kitchen table looking the part of attentive listeners. Hardcastle's hat was off, resting upside down on the table, with the mask stuffed into it.

". . . and then he dressed up like a vagrant, insulted the deputy, and got himself arrested. He'd made a fake cast, see? And he hid a Saturday night special in the end of it, fitted in his palm, all ready to go when he knocked the plaster off."

There wasn't a whole lot of humor in Hardcastle's rendition, more like chagrin.

Mark cringed. "I'm gonna catch it from Frank," he muttered to the spirit. "I guess maybe this _is_ kinda useful."

"It wasn't loaded, though," Hardcastle continued, in obvious response to Frank's stern look of horror.

"You checked?"

Hardcastle looked momentarily taken aback. "Nah. Jeez Frank, this is McCormick. It _wasn't_."

"Even more dangerous, then. That whole sheriff's department was up to their collective ears in drug running and you were the witness that was going to bring them down. They wouldn't have stopped at deadly force. When's the kid gonna learn?"

Hardcastle seemed to be giving that one some thought. "He thinks scam. Bullets in the gun would be cheating, I suppose. Anyway," he added, after a deep sigh, "you heard the rest of it. We scrambled around a bit until I finally figured out the trajectory—that it was Sheriff Cutler all along who'd used his daughter to set me up."

Frank shook his head. "I dunno, Milt. You make it sound like just another day in the life . . . and Mark went way beyond just parole violations on this one."

"He did what he thought he had to do," the judge said gruffly. "I can't say it was the _right_ way, but he thought that sheriff was crazy enough to try and kill me again and he didn't know how much time he had. And you know he was right about that."

"He could have made some calls—"

"The system, huh?" Hardcastle interrupted with a surprising amount of vehemence. "Well, Frank, the _system_ was all cranked up and ready to railroad me on the word of a—"

He halted abruptly, and threw a glance over his shoulder, as if he'd suddenly become aware of what he'd said and hoped the seditious sentiments wouldn't get out of the room. Mark froze where he stood, skewered by the unseeing stare.

"The system does that sometimes," Frank said quietly.

Mattie nodded once in thoughtful agreement.

"And you know, Milt, I can see how maybe Mark'd had enough dress-up for one week," she added cheerfully. It was a none-too-subtle redirection of the conversation. "Anyway, you can tell him thanks for me."

"For what? He ducked your party."

"For saving your life, you old coot." She nudged him. "Some of us value it, even if you apparently don't."

Hardcastle grumbled something nearly inaudible into his beer.

"Okay, if you won't, I will. I have half a mind to call him up right now." She started pushing back from the table, only to have Hardcastle put out a staying hand.

"Don't you dare," he said gruffly, and then in a little less of a mutter, "He takes enough chances as it is, without knowing you're rooting for him. I'm serious, Mattie."

He was. It was apparent from the expression on his face. He continued on, even more soberly. "I sure as hell never expected him to put his life on the line like that. It wasn't part of the deal."

"It is now." Frank took a swig of his own beer, put it down, and leaned forward, both arms crossed on the edge of the table.

"Well," Hardcastle said, in a tone that was halfway between resignation and astonishment, "I never meant it to be."

The three sat in a moment of shared silence—freighted with equal parts worry and relief. Mark drew back, as if freed from a force that had compelled him to listen without a chance to defend or explain. He wasn't sure there was a defense, and there sure as hell wasn't any explanation that would make any sense.

The spirit took his arm and the glints from the polished pans multiplied into a coppery wash of light.

00000

". . . I won't play the sap for you." It was Spade, telling Brigid he was on to her.

Mark straightened a little, a sudden kink in his neck. The movie was nearly over and he was pretty sure he'd slept through most of it. He'd never gotten his popcorn, either.

He sighed. He wasn't sure if that last dream had been much of a lesson on the importance of Halloween—more like a bit of wish fulfillment, he suspected. He sighed and lifted himself out of the chair. He didn't care if he saw the closing credits. He knew how it ended. There wasn't much loyalty in Sam Spade's world. The boss turned on his gunsel; the gunsel murdered his boss, and even Spade himself had been two-timing his dead partner with the man's unfaithful wife. He frowned at the screen. He wasn't sure why he liked the movie. Maybe he didn't anymore. It might just be a habit left over from another time.

"The Ghost of Movies Past," he muttered to himself and turned toward the hallway.

The doorbell tolled.

He froze where he stood, then leaned forward slightly so that he could see beyond the doorway, into the hall. The shadowy figure he glimpsed through the glass was of middle height and build, clearly not a man of Burt Schneider's dimensions. And yet this more ordinary figure sent a chill through Mark's bones. A second tolling of the bell summoned him and, against his conscious will, he found himself walking toward the door and reaching for the knob.

The night had become darker, with what moon there had been now gone behind the high, fast-moving clouds. There was the feeling of an impending storm.

But his eyes were drawn to none of that. The figure that now stood on Hardcastle's threshold could in no way be mistaken for a living man.

_Of course not_, Mark thought, strangely calm though his mouth had gone bone dry, _he's been dead eight months now. _This one didn't speak and therefore couldn't deny his resemblance to the late Weed Randall.

There was an odor of corruption overlain with a hint of sulfur. Mark had already made up his mind that he was going nowhere with this spirit and yet he felt powerless to move when the specter reached out, with one bony hand, to claw at his sleeve.

For a moment, when the green-black miasma cleared, Mark thought he had held fast to his intentions. Their displacement in space had been a scant ten feet—just far enough away from the house to have a clear view of the porch and drive—and the pumpkin. sitting uncarved on the bottom step, was the same one they'd stopped for yesterday at a roadside stand on the way back from Canary Creek.

"This isn't the future," Mark said to the spirit still standing at his side. The silence held for a moment, and then was broken by a familiar sound—Hardcastle's truck coming up the drive.

The headlights traced across the fountain and then the front window before the vehicle pulled to a stop. Mark saw the white-hatted figure within, turn and pick something up off the seat beside him then open the driver's side door and step down. The Lone Ranger emerged, pizza box balanced on one arm as he closed the door with his other hand and headed toward the steps.

Mark stepped forward, too, a greeting rising in his throat and already half-voiced when he saw a sudden movement—the glint off of something metallic in the bushes to the right of the house. The greeting turned into a shout of warning, but Hardcastle took another unheeding step before the first muzzle flash and a burst of gunfire.

He saw the judge spun sideways and knocked down by the spray of fire from the weapon. The specter did not hinder him as he bolted forward, but he hadn't even reached the man's side before he saw himself burst through the front door, pale and disheveled, looking as if he'd been startled awake.

A second burst of fire. His later incarnation never even made it to where Hardcastle lay. Mark watched himself fall, only wondering why the hell he hadn't at least grabbed a shotgun. In the shock of what he had witnessed, he was only vaguely aware that a dark-coated man was approaching, cradling an AK-47 and still eyeing the fallen men cautiously. The man stepped over to his first victim and executed a single shot to the head, then continued on to the porch and repeated the task.

Mark stood in the ringing silence, horrified, while the assassin walked quickly away, slipped in among the bushes, and was gone. He barely spared him a thought, only having eyes for the still form now very nearly at his feet. Hardcastle lay splayed out on his back, the final shot having pierced his forehead, his eyes already dull and fixed, staring up, unseeing. The contents of the pizza box were scattered, a blood-like smear of sauce upon the pavement.

He became aware of a metronome-like voice, flat with grief, saying "no" repeatedly, and realized it was his own. He pulled himself up, sharply, and spun around. The specter was a scant foot behind him, still silent. "You _are_ the ghost of what is to come—the future, aren't you?"

There might have been the slightest inclination of the specter's head, no more than that.

"Then take me back, _now_," Mark said, impatiently reaching for the spirit's hand and half-crushing its bony remains within his own grasp.

00000

He awoke, startled and disheveled, the television still flickering in black and white. The end credits were up on the screen. He frowned, puzzled by the feeling of a greater passage of time. Then the last part of his nightmare came back to him with a sudden jolt of memory as he heard Hardcastle's truck pulling up the drive.

He was out of the chair and lunging for the drawer where the gun-case key was kept, yanking it open and then clawing through the contents. A flash of headlight beams traced across the window, casting his shadow on the desk. _Too late. _He bolted up the steps, skidded around the door frame and grappled with the knob, already shouting his warning even before he had the door open.

He couldn't tell what Hardcastle had made of it. He briefly hoped it would all turn out to be a false alarm. But then he saw it, the glint in the bushes as Hardcastle turned and reached for something on the seat alongside him.

"Lookout," Mark shouted at the top of his lungs, "he's got a gun." And then he scooped up the still-solid pumpkin which sat on the steps and heaved it, with more force than precision, in the direction of the intruder.

A burst of fire seemed to go nowhere in particular, followed almost at once by a shout from the judge.

"_Freeze_, right there."

That the man hadn't frozen already was probably more a tribute to confusion than intent. He was sprawled on the ground, splattered with something that at first glance, in the limited light, might have been blood, but on closer inspection was pumpkin guts.

The AK-47 had been knocked from his grasp and was lying on the grass, out past his reach. Mark moved in to take possession of that. He glanced over his shoulder at the Lone Ranger and clicked his tongue in disapproval.

"You're never supposed to let the bad guys see you without your mask."

"I told'ja I don't like to drive in it." Hardcastle was stomping over, now holstering the ornate, white-handled, silver revolver.

"You _loaded_ that thing to go to a party?"

"'Course not," the judge said with a wolfish grin. "You're not the only one in charge of scams around here. Besides," he shifted his grin to the soggy specimen at their feet, "who needs silver bullets when you've got artillery?" He nudged one piece of the shattered pumpkin with the toe of his boot. "I think that was an eight pound shell at least." Then a brief shadow of concern crossed his face. "But let's not tell Frank about this one."

00000

The cops came. Frank, having heard the news, too, arrived a short while later, apparently straight from Mattie's party because he was still wearing the old Yankees' uniform with the number three emblazoned on it.

Mark told him the whole story. Frank had only a raised eyebrow for Hardcastle, when they got to the part where the empty weapon had been drawn. For Mark there was a pat on the back.

"If you can show us a little consistency, I'll send one of the scouts around to talk to you about pitching."

Eventually the whole circus left town, with the assassin in cuffs—being more slimed than injured—and tentatively identified as on Julio Treventino, one of Armando's boys and undoubtedly trying to thin the herd of witnesses at his boss' preliminary hearing.

Mark, having removed most of the vegetable matter from the crime scene, rejoined the Lone Ranger in the den.

"How was the party?" he asked casually.

The judge gave that a non-committal grunt. The answer might have been apparent by his early departure.

"How was the movie?" Hardcastle countered deftly.

"I think I slept through most of it."

"I dunno why you like that one so much. It's kinda dark."

"Nobody in a white hat, huh?" Mark grinned. "I guess it's 'cause Spade's sorta human. He makes mistakes once in a while but he comes out on top in the end . . . I dunno, though," he shrugged, "maybe I don't like it so much anymore."

Hardcastle turned slightly, a brief but hard stare out the window. "Good thing you didn't carve that pumpkin."

"You mean it might've been like a whiffle ball?" Mark was still holding onto the grin. It seemed necessary, at this point.

"Hmmph." The judge's stare had come round front again, and was fixed on him. "How the heck did you see that guy so fast?"

Mark scrabbled through his recollection of the two incidents and finally grasped at, "I heard you coming and went over by the window. I saw him."

"Then why the hell didn't you grab a gun? A _loaded_ gun, for Pete's sake."

This time he was back on honest ground. "I tried, really. I figured I didn't have time."

The judge shook his head. "You figured, huh?"

"Yeah," Mark said, crossing his arms and adding a little belligerence to it, "and you know I was right about that." Then he tried a trick he'd learned from Mattie, in the matter of changing the subject when dealing with donkeys. "You got halloweenies tonight. I didn't even have popcorn . . . I could go for some pizza."

Hardcastle twitched slightly and cast another, quicker look out the window. "Forgot it in all the fuss. I got one out in the car." He turned back, hooking his thumb toward the vehicle. "You wanna go get it?"

Interrogation over, Mark slipped out of the room and then onto the porch. The gibbous moon had escaped the cloud cover and silver light illuminated a now peaceful scene. What ghosts there were had fled into the night.


End file.
